• City staff indicated to LB's Mayor and City Council in a Dec. 11, 2015 memo not publicly circulated, that over a third of Long Beach intersections listed as requiring crossing guards didn't have them. At the same time, it said that new crossing guards were undergoing background checks and Live Scan and if cleared would nearly entirely cover the vacancies. About eight months later on August 16, 2016, city staff acknowledged in a publicly agendized memo that roughly a third of Long Beach intersections that were supposed to have crossing guards still don't have them. At the same time, it indicated that crossing guards sufficient to fill the vacancies "are anticipated to be hired" in the 2016-17 school year.

[Scroll down for further.]

• LB taxpayers lost crossing guards at seven intersections citywide starting in 2008-2009 after city staff bypassed a LB voter-enacted ordinance that created a "Pedestrian Safety Advisory Committee" (PSAC). PSAC is supposed to recommend to the City Council where to add, or remove, crossing guards. PSAC is required to apply very restrictive criteria in allowing crossing guards, but the City Council isn't bound by those restrictive criteria; Councilmembers can ignore PSAC's recommendations and ignore the restrictive criteria; the Council has the last word on where or where not to provide crossing guards.

  In late 2008 and heading into 2009, city management began requiring budget reductions that impacted LBPD's budget (and eventually resulted in erasing roughly 200 police officers for LB taxpayers, or about 20% of LB's citywide deployable force.) LB's crossing guard program is funded within LBPD's budget. In roughly the same period as management began reducing LBPD's budget, city staff sought to remove crossing guards at eight locations, contending the locations were no longer sufficiently hazardous.

  When vacancies on PSAC prevented the Committee from meeting, city management didn't bring its requested removals to the City Council where they would have been publicly heard and decided; instead, city management appears to have simply stopped budgeting the eight crossing guards on its own without public Council voted approval. The result produced a budget savings and was effectively allowed to continue without Council voted approval until August 16, 2016...when the Council voted (7-0, Price and Andrews absent) to approve the removal of seven of the crossing guards that management had removed without Council approval seven years earlier. [An eighth was accidentally left off the list and will be taken up in a future Council action.].

• In May 5, 2016, PSAC recommended providing crossing guards at three new locations, meaning a net recommended reduction of four crossing guards. The Council approved this on August 16, 2016...but at the same May 5 meeting, PSAC also recommended denial of crossing guards at six additional locations where they'd been requested. The Mayor and Councilmembers were told in an August 8 memo of the six locations where crossing guards were requested and denied...but the locations weren't identified n city staff's agendizing memo [we identify them below.]

• City staff plans in the coming months to seek PSAC recommendations to remove crossing guards at five additional locations [we identify them below.]

The Council's Aug. 2016 actions come a little over 60 days after LB voters approved Measure A, a general fund sales tax increase to 10% that the public was told would primarily fund police, fire and infrastructure items. The measure is expected to produce about $35 million in FY17 and about $48 annually thereafter.

For FY16, the crossing guard program had a budgeted cost of $972,050. For FY17. the school crossing guard program is budgeted at $1,142,850. The crossing guard program is administered by LBPD and budgeted in the Police Department's General Fund.

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Public Works Traffic Engineering is responsible for working with PSAC to review if various locations meet restrictive criteria for crossing guards in LB's Municipal Code. LBPD managing crossing guard staffing and operational side of the crossing guard program...and the PSAC budget is included in the Police Department.

What took place affects five locations in LB's 5th Council districts (four where crossing guards were removed in 2008-09, which the current Council effectively ratified on Aug. 16, 2016, plus a crossing guard requested at another 5th district location but not recommended by PSAC.) However what's taking place affects families and schoolchildren in Council districts citywide.

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PSAC is supposed to consist of one rep from each of LB's nine Council districts (nominated by each respective councilmember), an LBUSD rep, City Hall's Traffic Engineer, a City Manager chosen rep from LB area nonpublic schools and the President of LB's PTA. In 2008, PSAC stopped holding meetings due to lack of a quorum (some members quit)...at about the time city staff wanted to remove crossing guards at eight locations (contending they no longer met City Hall's restrictive criteria that PSAC must apply.)

Instead of replacing the missing PSAC members or bringing the matter directly to the City Council, city staff apparently stopped funding them on its own. As a result, crossing guards vanished for schoolchildren but produced an annual budget savings for City Hall.

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The record indicates that through 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and most of 2014, nothing changed...until Sept. 23, 2014 when Councilman Al Austin agendized an item asking what PSAC was (or wasn't) doing. The item was held over until Oct. 7, when Austin asked the City Manager to report to the Council on PSAC's status within 60 days, provide an overview of the City's school crossing guard program including how many and where crossing guards are deployed, and costs, as well as the City's overall efforts to ensure traffic safety in school zones. The minutes indicate that Councilmembers Austin and Gonzalez spoke; no other Councilmembers did, although School Board member Meghan Kerr did...and the item passed 8-0 (O'Donnell absent.)

If city management provided the report that the Council requested, it wasn't publicly agendized and wasn't among internal City memos ("to-from-for" memos) requested by LBREPORT.com in preparation for this story.

The next record we have of any PSAC activity was on May 7, 2015 when PSAC resurfaced with a quorum for an orientation meeting and about three months later got to work.

August 13, 2015: City management's priority was to erase crossing guards from eight intersections where, since roughly 2008, the City had failed to fund and provide them. (Public Works Director, Ara Maloyan, candidly told the Committee that there could be liability for the City in listing intersections as deserving a crossing guards but not funding and providing them.) The eight intersections were:

• 4th / Junipero -- Burbank School
• Bellflower / Monlaco -- Burcham School
• Metz / Palo Verde -- Cubberly School
• Daisy / Del Amo -- Dooley Elementary
• 51st / Long Beach Blvd -- Dooley Elem School
• Palo Verde / Willow -- Emerson School
• Pacific / Willow -- Lafevette School
• Arbor / Clark -- Twain School

City staff provided details on its proposed elimination of each intersection, which can be viewed at this link.. To view minutes of the Committee meeting, click here. To hear the Committee's entire meeting, click here.

PSAC voted (tally visible in minutes) to recommend deleting crossing guards at seven of the eight staff-recommended locations, but sought additional information on Daisy/Del Amo.

Dec. 10, 2015: PSAC voted to recommend adding a crossing guard at 6th St./Lime Ave. (1st dist., Stevenson School) [Minutes indicate a staff report that isn't visible online]. PSAC also voted to deny crossing guards requested at Caspian/Hill (Garfield school, 7th dist.), Delta/Hill (Garfield school, 7th dist.) and Val Verde/Roper (Newcomb Academy, 5th dist.) [Minutes indicate staff reports that aren't visible online.] PSAC member Mauna Eichner [Wrigley area resident] requested a study of adding crossing guards at 25th/Magnolia and Burnett/Eucalyptus. PSAC member Paul Bailey [LBUSD rep] requested a study of Santa Fe/34th St. and 17th St./Gundry Ave. (Whittier school, 6th dist.)

Dec. 11, 2015: Public Works Dir. Maloyan sent a "TFF" (to-from-for) memo to Mayor Garcia and Councilmembers, informing them that PSAC had deleted six intersections (although PSAC's minutes indicate it voted to delete seven; the memo omitted 51st/Long Beach Blvd.)

The memo to the Mayor and Council also disclosed a that while LB's school crossing guard program has 82 positions to support 65 locations (17 locations are assigned two crossing guards but only have one "due to high turnover"), as of Dec. 2015, the City had only 42 crossing guards to cover its 65 crossing guard locations. Put another way: as of Dec. 2015, about 23 out of 65 crossing guard locations citywide didn't have crossing guards...although city staff's memo adds that "20 additional applicants are currently undergoing background checks and Live Scan" and if cleared would produce a total of 62 crossing guards available for deployment.

So...why is LB still short of the full number of needed crossing guards? LB Public Works indicates to us in an email that LBPD is actively recruiting candidates for the open crossing guard positions but due to their frequent interactions with children, crossing guard applicants must go through a thorough review process and rigorous background checks.

May 5, 2016: PSAC voted to approve adding crossing guards at 3rd St./Maine Ave. (Cesar Chavez school, 1st dist.) and at Gundry/17th (Whittier school, 6th dist.) At the same time, it voted to deny requests for crossing guards at Spring/Claremore (Newcomb Academy/5th dist.), 3rd/Golden (Cesar Chavez school, 1st dist.), Magnolia/25th (dissent by Eichner, Lafayette school, 6th dist.), Burnett/Eucalyptus (dissent by Eichner, Lafayette school, 6th dist.), 7th St./Santiago (Lowell school, 3rd dist.); Santa Fe/34th (Webster school, 7th dist., speakers included 7th dist. Council office Chief of Staff Celina Luna) and Daisy Ave./Del Amo (Dooley elem school, speakers included 8th dist. Council office Chief of Staff Jonathan Kraus).

And in new business, crossing guard Supervisor Cathy Medina requested that staff review the following intersections for removal of crossing-guards at five additional locations: Locust at Market (Adams); 7th at Junipero (Burbank); 20th at Orange (Butler CIS), Atlantic at Harding (Powell) and Hill at Orange (Signal Hill Elementary).

PSAC's next meeting hasn't been scheduled at this point but the Public Works Dept. indicates it's expected to take place toward the end of 2016.

LBREPORT.com bases this report in large part on information in city staff memos to Councilmembers, provided to LBREPORT.com on request; on public agendized materials available online; and on details provided to us by the Public Works Dept. in response to two multi-question inquiries by us between Aug. 17 and Aug. 23. The Public Works Dept. was straightforward in its detailed responses to our inquiries.